Each new semester at Cerritos College offers students on campus the opportunity to join a club of their liking in efforts to better find themselves as students and individuals.

The Philosophy club held its first meeting of the semester on Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 11 a.m. in the Social Science building in room 137.

In the room, students were presented with the opportunity to listen to many of the faculty members of the philosophy department.

The meeting started out with brief speeches from each professor in attendance of who they are, and why they chose a career in philosophy.

Most of the professors kept resorting to three common themes in their individual speeches: love, tolerance, and individuality.

“We have to learn have empathy and to show compassion and love to one another, even if we disagree,” Philosophy Professor Ted Stolze states, “that’s the essence of philosophy.”

Philosophy professor Tim Chatman believes it’s important for any student attending Cerritos College to take a philosophy class, especially Critical Thinking, as it can help any student with real life situations.

“Philosophy, and Critical Thinking in particular, can help improve your ‘BS’ detector,” Chatman explains, “It helps you to think for yourself, and that is very important in today’s world, given the political nature of our country. You need to think for yourself, now more than ever.”

The professors encouraged students to take a look at all of the philosophy courses offered at Cerritos College as philosophy is an extensive subject with something for everyone.

As for the student turnout, club facilitator Jorge Lopez saw the student count as a very positive one.

Lopez stated, “I think the turnout was great. We had a lot of new students who are interested in philosophy for the first time show up, and that’s always a positive thing.”

Mohammad Hasan, the other facilitator for the philosophy club, also liked the meetings turnout, but believes more students will attend the later meetings because of the extra incentives attending the meetings grants them.

“The turnout was not bad at all. I believe more students will attend later meeting once we get guest speakers to attend. Students love a guest speaker. Every seat in the room gets filled up,” Hasan said.

More than anything, the club encourages people to always be an individual and to not conform.

The philosophy club meets every Tuesday at 11 a.m. in Social Science 137.